EV Minivan - why isn't there one (or many) now or planned??

We're probably one of the edge cases. We have four kids, and have a minivan specifically for road trips and vacations. We have a Pilot that seats us all, but the trip is night and day easier in our Odyssey, between the additional room in the third row and the additional cargo space.

We did an 1,100 mile drive this August in a single day. Left early in the morning, rolled home later that night. We made two stops along the way, roughly 400 miles into each tank, and each stop was under 30min.  

I think that trip would be doable in an EV,  but I'd be concerned with the range decreasing with all the weight of the passengers and their gear.  Gas mileage with all of us, our gear, A/C cranking, and a Yakima Skybox on the roof was 24MPG at a cruising speed of 70-75 MPH, which I was happy with.  Not sure how much of a hit a comparable EV would take in that scenario. Does a 300 mile range drop to 275 miles, or is it something closer to 200?  I would have split the trip into two days, but we were racing a hurricane/tropical storm that was traveling up the East Coast.

I'm watching the EV market closely, and am interested in seeing what kind of depreciation hit they take when they're a few years old, as well as what maintenance on one looks like out of warranty (I currently do about 95% of my maintenance myself).

In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :

I actually did a really quick, not at all thorough search yesterday, and it looks like VERY VERY ROUGHLY AND GENERICALLY 300 miles nominal range comes out somewhere in the realm of 220 miles at a 70-ish cruise, according to a few randomly stumbled upon sources (and a few different ~300-mile cars).

I needed to disabuse myself of the ludicrously optimistic notion I'd taken for no reason at all that the more up to date range figures must be "worst case" (freeway) because at this point range is pretty much irrelevant outside of the freeway. That was of course foolish.

Jesse Ransom said:

In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :

I actually did a really quick, not at all thorough search yesterday, and it looks like VERY VERY ROUGHLY AND GENERICALLY 300 miles nominal range comes out somewhere in the realm of 220 miles at a 70-ish cruise, according to a few randomly stumbled upon sources (and a few different ~300-mile cars).

We regularly road trip our Bolt from here in Baltimore up to eastern CT, or from here down to eastern TN. Because want to be efficient, we generally set the cruise to 65 mph and stay in the right lane. Easy to be calm and collected and arrive refreshed. At that rate, we get 4.8 mile per kWh when it's above freezing and about ~3.4 mile per kWh when under freezing. With the 66 kWh battery pack, that maths out to ~316 miles in the warmer weather and ~220 or so in the winter. I can live with that.

When not road tripping, I tend to ignore efficiency and drive it much harder, as the range is more than adequate for regional trips even at 70+ mph on the highway, but definitely on backroads and side streets, where speeds are under 60 usually. You can be much more aggressive with both acceleration and regen, so effectively range doesn't matter, as you can start each day out with a "full tank." (though with 300 real world miles avaialble to us, we tend to only plug in once a week or so)

RevRico said:

In reply to rothwem :

What gas powered vehicle goes 1000 miles in a tank? 

Name one. 

Maybe hyper miling an old VW diesel, maybe, if you live where it's glass flat.

Its not relevant though.  Filling up a gas vehicle takes 10 minutes.  You're looking at 5x a long to charge an electric vehicle, and there's far fewer charging stations around.  I think that one of the issue's we're having with EV adoption is that we're looking at it like a gas car.  The tech is different, maybe we ought to use them different.  When I was a kid, my mom had a huge cell phone that lasted for ~20-30 minutes of talk time.  Now, I charge my phone at night, the battery lasts all day.  Why shouldn't we have the same expectation for our cars?  

Sure there's fast chargers, but its not as efficient, using more power to charge than a slow charger.  There's even talk of liquid cooling chargers...you know where that heat is going? Waste.  It seems to me that it would be better to have a larger capacity and let the batteries charge at a more sustainable rate.  

rothwem said:

Sure there's fast chargers, but its not as efficient, using more power to charge than a slow charger.  There's even talk of liquid cooling chargers...you know where that heat is going? Waste.  It seems to me that it would be better to have a larger capacity and let the batteries charge at a more sustainable rate.  

The faster chargers are generally (significantly) more efficient.

If a charger is 99% efficient but it's flowing 150+kw, you're still having to deal with 1.5kw of waste heat. That's why they need to liquid cool them. It's not inefficient it's just dealing with an enormous amount of power. 

ProDarwin said:

rothwem said:

Sure there's fast chargers, but its not as efficient, using more power to charge than a slow charger.  There's even talk of liquid cooling chargers...you know where that heat is going? Waste.  It seems to me that it would be better to have a larger capacity and let the batteries charge at a more sustainable rate.  

The faster chargers are generally (significantly) more efficient.

Hm, that's interesting.  Do you have any links about it?  I knew that it was typically more expensive per KWh, had more heat buildup and was typically less good for the battery life, I thought efficiency played into it as well.  Is it because there's a "fatter pipe" for the electricity to power through?  Be gentle, I barely made it through ECE101.  

Some notes I have, probably repeated for the umpteenth time on this forum: 

1. 1,000 miles a day is silly from a practical standpoint, but important from a marketing standpoint. 
2. I personally want 300 miles range. I don't need that by any stretch of the imagination, but I regularly make a 270 mile drive one way, and I do not like to stop during it. We leave at bedtime for kiddo to achieve that in a gas vehicle. 300 miles and I'm happy with that. The longest drive I make somewhat regularly is about 350 miles. If I can get that with 15 minutes of charging/grabbing food, I'm happy. 
   1. Subnote on this one: Sometimes I'm towing a small boat for that 270 mile drive. So I'd like to be able to make that drive with less than 10 minutes of charging on the way.
3. Every few years, I will join some relatives on a fishing trip. I join up about 1/3 of the way through, it is an 863 mile drive total. We're usually in an F250. They have to stop once before they get to me (70 year old bladder necessitates it), once to get me, once for breakfast, once for lunch, and once for a stop at a fishing shop. We fill up every one of those times. 5 stops in 863 miles. By that stretch, we'd only need about a 200 mile range. This trip takes about 15 hours total. Using the Tesla charging system, only because they are the most robust and most built network, an EV would add about 10 minutes, and we would have to eat at a Bob Evans instead of a Cracker Barrel. Oh, and someone would need to drop off the rest of the group at Cabelas and then walk 5 minutes across the street since that is how far the charging station is from Cabelas. 

Range is not an issue for an EV for 95% of the population. There are unique situations in which this is not the case. But that is unique.

rothwem said:

ProDarwin said:

rothwem said:

Sure there's fast chargers, but its not as efficient, using more power to charge than a slow charger.  There's even talk of liquid cooling chargers...you know where that heat is going? Waste.  It seems to me that it would be better to have a larger capacity and let the batteries charge at a more sustainable rate.  

The faster chargers are generally (significantly) more efficient.

Hm, that's interesting.  Do you have any links about it?  I knew that it was typically more expensive per KWh, had more heat buildup and was typically less good for the battery life, I thought efficiency played into it as well.  Is it because there's a "fatter pipe" for the electricity to power through?  Be gentle, I barely made it through ECE101.  

EV batteries and electronics use DC power. The juice that comes out of your wall at home (120V or 240V) is AC, so an onboard inverter has to convert from AC power supplied to the vehicle, to DC power used by the vehicle and that process involves losses.

The Fast Chargers where you pay to charge in public are DC from the start, so they skip that conversion step and maintain higher efficiency.

There's more to it as well, but that's probably the big difference, and it's pretty easy to understand

Cost aside, for our two other vehicles (Honda Pilot and a Toyota RAV4), I'd swap with an EV version of the same car in a heartbeat.  The minivan is the only vehicle I'd hesitate on, because it's our typical long trip with the family vehicle.  There are times when making an extra charging stop could impact our ability to avoid or skirt around traffic.  We time our trips to miss the NYC and DC traffic as much as possible, and having to make an unexpected stop could put us behind the 8 ball.  We had some of those situations happen when we were staring to potty train our kids, and my wife an I vividly remember the nightmare of being stuck in traffic with the kids.  They're all older now, but traveling with kids can be complicated enough without adding in any more things to manage (i.e. charging).

I have to think we're the exception, though, and a lot of minivan drivers would benefit enormously from a hybrid/plug-in hybrid/full EV version of a minivan.  Just yesterday, my wife and I drove about 100 miles, all in-town between 3PM and 9PM.  Being able to do that all on battery-only would be an enormous advantage for us.

As our two oldest approach driving age, I'm thinking of something like a Prius or a Volt would be a good addition to the fleet.  They both seem to excel at the in-town running around that we do so much of.

STM317 said:

rothwem said:

ProDarwin said:

rothwem said:

Sure there's fast chargers, but its not as efficient, using more power to charge than a slow charger.  There's even talk of liquid cooling chargers...you know where that heat is going? Waste.  It seems to me that it would be better to have a larger capacity and let the batteries charge at a more sustainable rate.  

The faster chargers are generally (significantly) more efficient.

Hm, that's interesting.  Do you have any links about it?  I knew that it was typically more expensive per KWh, had more heat buildup and was typically less good for the battery life, I thought efficiency played into it as well.  Is it because there's a "fatter pipe" for the electricity to power through?  Be gentle, I barely made it through ECE101.  

EV batteries and electronics use DC power. The juice that comes out of your wall at home (120V or 240V) is AC, so an onboard inverter has to convert from AC power supplied to the vehicle, to DC power used by the vehicle and that process involves losses.

The Fast Chargers where you pay to charge in public are DC from the start, so they skip that conversion step and maintain higher efficiency.

There's more to it as well, but that's probably the big difference, and it's pretty easy to understand

Even for home chargers, L2 has a significantly higher efficiency than L1.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=7046253

As a minivan owner with a family that prefers driving long distance to flying...  give me a minivan with an honest 400 mile range at 70 mph (loaded with people and luggage) and I'd be perfectly happy.  At the moment the issue isn't necessarily finding places to charge along the route from A to B, but more that frequently the destination itself may not have convenient charging stations.  For example, when I visit my family there isn't a single charger in the entire county; with a 400 mile range that isn't necessarily a huge issue.

That said, at this point I would accept a 300 at 70 mph, but 400 would be ideal.

Also, speaking from a "I travel with a wife and kids" angle, adding charging stations to existing public rest stops and perhaps increasing the number of public rest stops would be absolutely amazing.  Being able to have a short walk or let the kids bounce around on a playground while waiting for the vehicle to charge would be preferable to sitting in a strip mall parking lot, staying in the car because there's nothing but concrete and traffic as far as the eye can see.

A small fee on top of the cost of the energy you're using to charge your vehicle could be added to pay for the extra infrastructure.  Bonus points if they used the land and roof space for solar panels to reduce the draw from the rest of the power grid, maybe also decreasing the fee to encourage people to travel during the day time when the solar panels are working the hardest.

A couple of things that are true now and is unlikely to change in the future:

-the biggest expense in building an EV is the battery. A 400 mile range vehicle will always cost more than a 300 mile vehicle because it needs 33% more battery. We can construct elaborate scenarios to justify why we need something that has 33% more range, but will the market actually pony up? Or will the market say "I might have to charge once, but I'll save a bunch of money by buying the 300 mile range variant". I suspect the latter, and that the market will settle on an acceptable range/cost trade off  that is between 250 and 300 miles. 
 

-extra range only saves you noticeable travel time if your trip is less than the maximum range but more than the range of a lesser vehicle. You can see this by playing with the Tesla trip planner and comparing a Model 3 to a Model S. As soon as the trip length is further than a straight shot in the S, the difference evens out. That's because you're still using about the same amount of energy and that energy has to be replenished. There are some interesting edge cases when you're getting right up against the max range of a vehicle because of the physics of charging to 100%, but overall it's shown me that the extra range between a 300 mile 3 and a 400 mile S is rarely actually valuable. Even if the trip is between 300 and 400 miles, the charging stop is very short because you need less than 100 miles of extra range, and that's about the length of an ICE gas stop. I have found this interesting to learn and didn't anticipate it.

- weight is not the significant factor in highway energy use, aero is. As long as your passengers are inside the vehicle instead of strapped on the roof, you shouldn't see a major change in range by loading up for a family trip. 
 

MrFancypants said:

At the moment the issue isn't necessarily finding places to charge along the route from A to B, but more that frequently the destination itself may not have convenient charging stations.  For example, when I visit my family there isn't a single charger in the entire county;

I feel like this has been mentioned countless times, but what's one more time... Why would you need a public charger when you're stopped overnight at a destination, especially as a guest at someone's house? Plug into a normal outlet there and the car can sip away all night long. 

Vaguely unrelated tangent; while I was on our minivan road trip last week, my daydreaming slipped into the feasibility of an EV box truck, toy hauler, or motorhome. We were already discussing taking the trip at a slower pace to see the sights, and observing the many KOA campgrounds along our route. Such a roadtrip in a motorhome would be far less of an ordeal without the engine noise, the grinding away at 40 mph on a steep grade with the engine screaming, and without the 7mpg fuel costs. Plus, a RV space at a campground is an ideal overnight charge stop since there's already 220 power.

newrider3 said:

MrFancypants said:

At the moment the issue isn't necessarily finding places to charge along the route from A to B, but more that frequently the destination itself may not have convenient charging stations.  For example, when I visit my family there isn't a single charger in the entire county;

I feel like this has been mentioned countless times, but what's one more time... Why would you need a public charger when you're stopped overnight at a destination, especially as a guest at someone's house? Plug into a normal outlet there and the car can sip away all night long. 

 

Vaguely unrelated tangent; while I was on our minivan road trip last week, my daydreaming slipped into the feasibility of an EV box truck, toy hauler, or motorhome. We were already discussing taking the trip at a slower pace to see the sights, and observing the many KOA campgrounds along our route. Such a roadtrip in a motorhome would be far less of an ordeal without the engine noise, the grinding away at 40 mph on a steep grade with the engine screaming, and without the 7mpg fuel costs. Plus, a RV space at a campground is an ideal overnight charge stop since there's already 220 power.

Because a 115Vac outlet won't add enough range, even overnight, to really help much.

I recently had seven 10-year olds in the Sienna on the way to a birthday party. If Toyota can figure out how to capture the energy they give off (DC generating seats of some kind?!?!?) they could power an e-minivan indefinitely.  All you need is snacks and sugary drinks. 

But if your hosts have an electric dryer... :)

The "visiting the relatives in the boondocks" scenario is plausible but where there's electricity, there's a way to get it. It's just a matter of level of effort. Some friends who were staying in an Adirondack cabin belonging to a family member for several months with a Model Y wired in a 240v plug for the car. If I were commonly road-tripping to visit my mom I'd probably do the same just for convenience. It would be easier than trying to get gasoline in her urban locale, honestly. IIRC there's a sub panel in her 35 year old garage attached to the 110 year old house.

KOA has recently announced they are getting into the charging business. They're basically adding Level 2 chargers to their existing RV posts. This does not surprise me one bit, I think it's an excellent move. 

Note from the press release:

"According to KOA’s latest research, one in five campers have an EV in their household, compared to 12% of non-campers."

newrider3 said:

MrFancypants said:

At the moment the issue isn't necessarily finding places to charge along the route from A to B, but more that frequently the destination itself may not have convenient charging stations.  For example, when I visit my family there isn't a single charger in the entire county;

I feel like this has been mentioned countless times, but what's one more time... Why would you need a public charger when you're stopped overnight at a destination, especially as a guest at someone's house? Plug into a normal outlet there and the car can sip away all night long. 

First you're assuming that I'm sleeping at a relative's house with a family of four and not staying at a hotel. All four of us can't just sleep on the couch.

Second, "sipping" is a problem. A level 1 charger would take ~40+ hours to fully charge the size of battery a vehicle the size and weight of a minivan would need.

Keith Tanner said:

But if your hosts have an electric dryer... :)

The "visiting the relatives in the boondocks" scenario is plausible but where there's electricity, there's a way to get it. It's just a matter of level of effort. Some friends who were staying in an Adirondack cabin belonging to a family member for several months with a Model Y wired in a 240v plug for the car. If I were commonly road-tripping to visit my mom I'd probably do the same just for convenience. It would be easier than trying to get gasoline in her urban locale, honestly. IIRC there's a sub panel in her 35 year old garage attached to the 110 year old house.

KOA has recently announced they are getting into the charging business. They're basically adding Level 2 chargers to their existing RV posts. This does not surprise me one bit, I think it's an excellent move. 

Note from the press release:

"According to KOA’s latest research, one in five campers have an EV in their household, compared to 12% of non-campers."

That might end up being a very long cord snaking through the house. Maybe...

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I think there's a mental/emotional hurdle to internalizing the "short top up charge" thing. Without thinking through the logistics carefully, it feels super-weird to do all the exiting the freeway, finding a charger, etc rigmarole and then end up using 50% of the hassle to get 20% of a charge.

I'm very much talking about perception here, not reason.

tuna55 said:

newrider3 said:

I feel like this has been mentioned countless times, but what's one more time... Why would you need a public charger when you're stopped overnight at a destination, especially as a guest at someone's house? Plug into a normal outlet there and the car can sip away all night long. 

Because a 115Vac outlet won't add enough range, even overnight, to really help much.

Additionally, if you are visiting someone in a condo/apt/townhouse, you can't run an ext. cord out to your car.

Keith Tanner said:

But if your hosts have an electric dryer... :)

The "visiting the relatives in the boondocks" scenario is plausible but where there's electricity, there's a way to get it. It's just a matter of level of effort. Some friends who were staying in an Adirondack cabin belonging to a family member for several months with a Model Y wired in a 240v plug for the car. If I were commonly road-tripping to visit my mom I'd probably do the same just for convenience. It would be easier than trying to get gasoline in her urban locale, honestly. IIRC there's a sub panel in her 35 year old garage attached to the 110 year old house.

KOA has recently announced they are getting into the charging business. They're basically adding Level 2 chargers to their existing RV posts. This does not surprise me one bit, I think it's an excellent move. 

Note from the press release:

"According to KOA’s latest research, one in five campers have an EV in their household, compared to 12% of non-campers."

Back in the 1970's, my Grandpa put a gas tank under his vacation home's garage. I want to say it was 500 gallons or so. All the family used it, whether for boats, or just filling up going home. I think he pulled it out in the early 2000's when it became more difficult to get it filled. 

In 2019, my aunt and uncle built their new place right down the road. New build. Their kids said to make sure that it is ready for electric cars. My parents place, also down the road, is ready for it (after the cost of the charger itself) thanks to the POs RV electric hookup. 

Grandpa may have been ahead of his time. 

ProDarwin said:

tuna55 said:

newrider3 said:

I feel like this has been mentioned countless times, but what's one more time... Why would you need a public charger when you're stopped overnight at a destination, especially as a guest at someone's house? Plug into a normal outlet there and the car can sip away all night long. 

Because a 115Vac outlet won't add enough range, even overnight, to really help much.

Additionally, if you are visiting someone in a condo/apt/townhouse, you can't run an ext. cord out to your car.

But in that situation, we can reasonably assume that this person is in a relatively urban or suburban area, and a charging station is nearby at a grocery store or similar. 

Jesse Ransom said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I think there's a mental/emotional hurdle to internalizing the "short top up charge" thing. Without thinking through the logistics carefully, it feels super-weird to do all the exiting the freeway, finding a charger, etc rigmarole and then end up using 50% of the hassle to get 20% of a charge.

I'm very much talking about perception here, not reason.

It's definitely a different mindset. Even just the concept that you don't need to charge away from home unless you're on a road trip is under appreciated. I think this will gradually change as more people are exposed to EVs.

My experience is mostly crossing the mountains and deserts of Utah, Colorado and Nevada. But the process of pulling off the interstate to charge has been very low effort, they're all right there. Convenience is approximately the same as a truck stop or fast food restaurant. A 20% charge is a very short stop, but something like 50% goes pretty quickly if you're charging from 20-70%. You just have to stay away from the temptation to top right up unless you need it or you're doing something else while the car is charging. 

20% is the bonus you get when you how have to stop for a quick pee break :)